Japanese Babies Battle In Crying Sumo Competition
June 3rd, 2007 by James
Mainichi has reported on an interesting festival held on May 27th in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture:
More than 200 babies took part in a “crying sumo” competition held at Chokoji Temple here in late May.
The event first began in 1993 to pray for the health of babies. Men wearing mawashi sumo belts gently shook the babies in a bid to see how powerfully they could cry. A Japanese proverb says that babies who often cry will grow up to be healthy.
It doesn’t look like many photos of the 2007 festival have been placed online yet, but the festival’s homepage did have this wonderful set of pictures from last year’s competition:
Can’t get enough photos of sumo wrestlers making babies cry? Check out our other report on a similar festival held in Tokyo.
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Were female babies allowed to take part in this?
As I can remember, Sumo observes the Shinto religion, and therefore views women as dirty, so that’s why Sumo can’t be played by women. Or so the JSA says.
(Which is why Sumo isn’t an Olympic sport. The IOC probably wouldn’t want a sport that utilises a religion that deems women as dirty to be in the Olympics.)
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Female babies were allowed to participate in this event:
資格： 生後５ヶ月から１歳半までの赤ちゃん（性別問わず）
http://www11.plala.or.jp/cyokoji/annai/naki.html
“Help! He’s going to eat me!”
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